Posts Tagged ‘Reggie Williams’

July 12, 2013 · 2:19 PM ET

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HANG TIME SOUTHWEST — The dust is settling and rosters emerging after the biggest free-agent move of the summer came down one week ago. Dwight Howard has positioned the Houston Rockets as Western Conference contenders while creating altered realities for the Los Angeles Lakers and Dallas Mavericks.

Because of their high-priced payroll, the Lakers have limited flexibility to strengthen their roster for the 2013-14 season. To lessen some of its financial burden, L.A. made it official on Thursday that it will use the amnesty provision to cut loose Metta World Peace, a move that Kobe Bryant made clear he’s not thrilled with on Twitter:

Had Howard remained with the Lakers, Pau Gasol might have been on the wrong end of the amnesty, but now he’ll be the Lakers starting center. L.A. has added Nick Young, Chris Kaman and Jordan Farmar to a roster that certainly has talent, but isn’t even expected to make the playoffs by some.

The Mavs will scale a considerable mountain to not be lottery-bound in consecutive seasons. Dallas missed out on Deron Williams a year ago and watched Dwight pick their division rivals this time around. To make Mavs fans feel even worse, Andre Iguodala told the San Francisco Chronicle that he almost signed with Dallas an hour before committing to the Golden State Warriors. Dallas met with Andrew Bynum, but passed on making an offer.

Dallas was extremely high on Iguodala as an anchor for the future with Dirk Nowitzki in the case that Howard said no. The Mavs are in difficult spot now with a hodgepodge, guard-heavy roster that bears almost no resemblance to last season’s team that failed to make the playoffs for the first time in 13 years. It includes newcomers Jose Calderon, Devin Harris, Wayne Ellington and a couple of rookies in Shane Larkin and Israeli free-agent Gal Mekel.

At least Nowitzki kept a sense of humor after missing out on the prime DH target and signing another one:

We worked all summer to get DH to Dallas. Welcome back to the Mavs, Devin Harris….

Meanwhile in Houston, with Howard joining All-Star guard James Harden and emerging sharpshooter Chandler Parsons, the front office went to work to add more shooters around their new center, bringing back Francisco Garcia and agreeing to a deal with Reggie Williams.

Here’s how the Rockets, Lakers and Mavericks have filled out their rosters and who else each might be looking at:

December 13, 2011 · 4:20 PM ET

The Bobcats, Raptors, Trail Blazers and Rockets are the four teams in hottest pursuit of unrestricted free agent swingman Reggie Williams, according to a league source. Williams became unrestricted over the weekend when his former team, the Warriors, rescinded its qualifying offer to him in order to clear room for a four-year, $43 million offer sheet Golden State made to Clippers center DeAndre Jordan. The Clippers matched the sheet on Jordan Monday.

The 25-year-old Williams is one of the better shooters still available in free agency. He made 42 percent of his three-pointers at Golden State last season, averaging 9.2 points, mainly off the bench, for the Warriors. The two-time NCAA scoring champ from VMI burst onto the NBA scene out of the Developmental League in 2010, averaging 15 points in 24 games for the Warriors after being called up. He worked out for the Bobcats in Charlotte on Sunday.

The Blazers are also interested in free agent guard Jamal Crawford, who is being pursued by the Pacers, Knicks and Timberwolves.

December 7, 2010 · 12:56 PM ET

Through Monday, the NBA season is exactly 25 percent done. The quarter pole is a great time to evaluate a lot of things, but here we’re going to look at early candidates for the Most Improved Player award.

There isn’t clear criteria for the award, as indicated by the 13 different players who received first-place votes last season. Personally, I thought that Kevin Durant, who went from non-All-Star to MVP candidate, was the only choice, but only 17 of the 123 voters agreed with me.

Statistically, there are a few different ways you can compare performance from one year to the next. And I’ll probably explore all of them by the end of the season. But for now, since it’s still early, I’ll keep it simple.

To see whose production has taken the biggest jump from last season to this one, I looked at efficiency per game. Efficiency is a stat that’s been used here on NBA.com for a while now, and it’s fairly simple to understand. You just add up a player’s positive stats (points, rebounds, assists, steals and blocks) and subtract turnovers and missed shots (both from the field and from the line). So the formula is this:

Most Improved: Efficiency per Game

Player

Team

2009-10

2010-11

Diff.

D.J. Augustin

CHA

6.0

16.2

10.2

Reggie Evans

TOR

4.9

14.3

9.5

JaVale McGee

WAS

8.6

17.1

8.5

Kevin Love

MIN

19.7

27.0

7.4

Paul Millsap

UTA

15.6

22.7

7.1

Russell Westbrook

OKC

18.1

25.1

7.1

Raymond Felton

NYK

14.8

21.5

6.8

Tyson Chandler

DAL

10.3

17.0

6.6

Daniel Gibson

CLE

6.0

12.6

6.6

Jrue Holiday

PHI

9.4

16.0

6.5

D.J. Augustin probably isn’t one of the first guys you think of when it comes to Most Improved. But he’s clearly a step ahead of the field (especially since Reggie Evans is out for two months with a broken foot), having stepped into Raymond Felton‘s role as the starting point guard in Charlotte.

None of the other names on the list are real surprises.

On the opposite end of the spectrum, we have the 10 players who have regressed most in terms of efficiency per game…

Most Regressed: Efficiency per Game

Player

Team

2009-10

2010-11

Diff.

David Lee

GSW

27.0

18.8

-8.2

Reggie Williams

GSW

16.2

8.0

-8.2

Brendan Haywood

DAL

16.1

7.6

-8.5

Erick Dampier

MIA

12.2

3.7

-8.5

LeBron James

MIA

32.4

23.8

-8.6

Corey Maggette

MIL

18.6

9.3

-9.2

Jermaine O’Neal

BOS

15.8

6.6

-9.3

Anthony Randolph

NYK

14.3

3.2

-11.1

Earl Barron

PHX

17.0

2.7

-14.3

Troy Murphy

NJN

20.5

6.1

-14.4

The name that stands out here, of course, is LeBron James. We all knew that his statistical production would fall off, but maybe not this much. People talked about him averaging a triple-double with the Heat, but his rebounds have gone down from 7.3 to 5.7 per game, and his assists have gone down from 8.6 to 7.3.

Last year, James led the league in efficiency at 32.4 per game, which was more than four points better than the next player on the list, Durant at 28.0. It’s obviously not easy maintaining those numbers when you’ve got to share the ball with two other All-Stars.

July 18, 2010 · 9:24 PM ET

Posted by Drew Packham

LAS VEGAS — Washington point guard John Wall took home top honors as Most Outstanding Player in Las Vegas after leading all players in scoring (23.5 ppg) and assists (7.8 apg). Fellow rookie DeMarcus Cousins was honored as T-Mobile Rookie of the Month for his impressive Summer League showing. Below are the rest of the players named to the All-Tournament team.

July 15, 2010 · 9:20 PM ET

LAS VEGAS — A third Summer League was the charm for Golden State’s Reggie Williams.

Williams, a D-League call-up who burst onto the scene at the end of last season, averaged 22.6 points in five games, highlighted by a 34-point outburst against John Wall and Wizards on Sunday. This was Williams third invite to Summer League, and he had 18 points at halftime Thursday before tweaking his hamstring and missing the second half. Williams finished his stint in Vegas second in scoring to Cleveland’s J.J. Hickson, who still has who still has three games left.

“My confidence is really high since I played a few games during the season,” said Williams, who averaged 15.2 points in 23 games for the Warriors last season. “It just felt really good out there.”

When asked if there was anything specific he was working on, Williams said the coaches told him to “just play.”

“My ‘just playing’ has got me here so far, so I’m just trying to get better at everything,” Williams said.